Botswana-Legislators-Quarantine

Botswana: Concern as quarantined legislators violate isolation rules

APA-Gaborone (Botswana)

Botswana legislators who were put in quarantine alongside President Mokgweetsi Masisi after exposure to COVID-19 have allegedly breached the isolation rules, APA learnt here Friday.

Health services director Malaki Tshipayagae said some of the Members of Parliament breached the quarantine rules by allegedly going shopping instead of staying at home.

"This is regrettable and the public is informed that the MPs have been removed from home quarantine and will be quarantined under government-supervised quarantine," Tshipayagae said.

Malaki said the MPs, together with Masisi, senior government officials and journalists who attended Wednesday’s special parliamentary session to discuss a proposal to extend the state of emergency to six months, were ordered to follow home quarantine rules and not risk spreading the disease to members of their families and the public at large.

Masisi had called for the special session of the National Assembly on April 8 but at the end of the meeting it was discovered that everyone who had attended was exposed to a nurse on duty who had tested positive for COVID-19.

"To that end all those in attendance filled the required forms for contact tracing," said Malaki.